West Ham face striker shortage ahead of trip to Blackburn

West Ham manager Slaven Bilic will likely only have new signing Emmanuel Emenike available to him in terms of starting strikers when his side travel to Blackburn in the FA Cup 5th round tie on Sunday afternoon, as per the Daily Mail.

Enner Valencia has been the regular starter in recent weeks, but he is unavailable after injuring his ankle in the 2-2 draw with Norwich City last weekend.

In normal circumstances, Andy Carroll would come into the side, but he too will miss the game with an abductor muscle injury, also suffered in the game at Carrow Road.

Nikica Jelavic has been sold to Chinese second division side Beijing Renhe and Diafra Sakho won’t return to full training until Monday, so the responsibility of leading the line will fall to Emenike.

The Nigerian has only made two brief substitute appearances for the Hammers since joining on loan in January so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s fit enough to play a full 90 minutes.